To slash the time it takes to conduct a full website audit, we concentrate on the key areas where a few tweaks will improve your SEO. We guarantee these quick fixes will improve your organic traffic – just make sure you follow all the steps in our checklist!

Optimise your backlinks

Of all the tests in this quick SEO audit, checking backlinks is the most time-consuming, so let’s tackle this first.

The good news is that you can leave your backlink tool to search whilst you are carrying out some of the other performance checks. We prefer SEMrush to check backlinks, but there are other backlink SEO tool options out there.

SEMrush’s site: SEMrush is a great tool to use for checking backlinks that you can leave to run in the background.

And yes, we know what you’re thinking: if backlinks are good for SEO, why do I need to audit them? Well, backlinks can also have a negative effect on your page rank.

Whilst it is true that Google uses backlinks to gauge the quality of a website, the search engine company encountered a problem; digital marketers were trying to manipulate organic search results by publishing content with backlinks on link farms – low-quality 3rd party websites.

To combat this problem, Google judges the strength and credibility of a backlink by assessing the quality of the website the link is hosted from. The search engines evaluate the build, quality of content, online reputation and many other metrics.

As a result, a backlink audit is a key part of any SEO audit. It is important to check that the backlinks pointing to your site are not damaging. Sometimes this is a judgement call. You should check the quality of the websites bigging you up by seeing if they are publishing good content and are not just phishing for spam.

The SEMrush tool is one of the best profile checkers available. It gives you a list of all the backlinks you are receiving, but with valuable data about the status and quality of said websites including top anchors used, the referring domain to referring IP ratio, and TLD distribution. All of these factors contribute to how reputable your backlinks are (for example, whether there are varied anchors being used, which suggests your links are authentic).

Example SEMrush evaluation: you can see your Referring Domain vs. Referring IPs ratio, TLD Distribution, Top Anchors and more. Having a balanced Ref. Domain to Ref. IP ratio is best, as it proves a variety of legitimate websites are linking to you (not just a group of related websites from a backlink farm with the same IP address).

You could just use the Trust and Authority data from Majestic SEO, but that only gives you information about websites that have an existing reputation.

But what about up-and-coming websites that have not been online for so long? Consider whether the websites are legitimate businesses which have a relevance to your linked webpage. If you feel the host website will gradually build a reputation and contribute to a higher ranking for you as time goes by they are worth keeping.

Check your indexing and accessibility

Websites are assessed by their usability – which means visitors and search engine crawlers need to be able to access web pages so that their interaction is recorded.

For that to happen your website has to be properly indexed. Red flags will show up as 4** or 5** server errors or 3** redirect errors. These website audits are easy to perform even for first-time users.

Use a website audit tool such as Screaming Frog that is capable of checking crawling options. Check that the status of robots.txt file is formatted correctly. If they are not, you will need to go to the robots.txt settings in your SEO audit tool and allow crawlers access.

ScreamingFrog settings: you may need to check your robot.txt settings in ScreamingFrog to make sure crawlers are allowed access.

Asses your site speed

User-experience is high on the list of search engine values and should be a key part of your SEO strategy. And how quickly a website loads is high on the list of priorities of end-users. If your website does not download within an instant, end-users will look elsewhere.

Take the mobile-friendly test

There is no escaping the mobile revolution. On the contrary, the internet is more likely to become a mobile-first platform. Google has already upgraded to a mobile-first index to publish search results.

This means online businesses need a responsive website that performs just as well on mobile devices as on larger screens. To perform a quick test, use another of Google’s free web testing tools.

Optimise your content

Content is THE driving force behind SEO. We expect you are already publishing high-quality content that provides great value for readers. If not, make it a priority in your SEO strategy. In-depth content outranks competitors.

We have covered content audits in greater depth in our quick content audit template so won’t go over old ground again here. When optimizing your content just be sure to update the following with the most relevant keyword and related longtail keywords:

Page Title (and URL)

Opening paragraph

First 100 words

At least one subheading

Alt tags in images

Metatags

Meta description

If you’re looking to perform a quick audit on your website with a few tests to increase SEO rankings, these corrections will have the most impact and should be conducted fairly regularly.

However, we recommend conducting thorough website audit checks at least every six months. Maintaining your website ensures your online store stays in good working order and you don’t miss out on valuable traffic.

We can help

We hope that this SEO audit template has set you on track for SEO success. If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call on 0207 305 5599 or check out our SEO audit services page to see the many ways in which our website audits will help you discovers areas you can improve your website and increase conversions